“The South Side Community Art Center — a Bronzeville landmark that has been an artistic home for generations of Black creatives such as Margaret Burroughs, Gordon Parks and Kerry James Marshall — received a $2 million grant to help restore its historic building and construct a major addition.
“The 9,700-square-foot addition will double the size of the center, located in a stately but aged 1892 brick-and-limestone former residence at 3831 S. Michigan Ave. Elevators, new gallery space, archive rooms, artist studios, meeting spaces, collection storage and a rooftop deck will be included in the addition.
“The award from Chicago’s Driehaus Foundation goes toward the project’s $15 million project budget. Brinkman-Hill said some work, including the installation of underground geothermal systems that will heat and cool the buildings’ interior, is already underway.
“The building opened in 1940 through funding from the federal Works Progress Administration, and it was formally dedicated the next year by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. It’s the nation’s oldest Black American art center.
“The construction project includes restoring and rehabilitating the interior and exterior of the building, a city landmark also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“And the center’s remarkable wood-paneled modernist first-floor gallery, designed by Hin Bredendieck and Nathan Lerner of the New Bauhaus — a design school that moved to the Illinois Institute of Technology after being run out of Germany by the Nazis — will be restored and improved, the project’s architect, Ann Lui, a partner with Chicago architects Future Firm, said.
“The center’s addition will wrap around the rear of the historic building, creating a new single-story entrance and courtyard on the north side of the center, and an exit and green space on its south edge.
“The Driehaus Foundation also hopes that its support will serve to leverage support from other foundations and individuals,’ said Anita Alexander, senior program officer for the foundation’s Built Environment Portfolio. ‘The building is just the beginning. SSCAC needs critical operating and reserve funds, which are often overlooked by supporters but are essential to long-term sustainability.'” (Bey, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/17/25)
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